Abdalla Nassar, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics, under the advising of Dr. Judith A. Todd, P.B. Breneman Department Head Chair, received a 2009 National Science Foundation Graduate Research award. This award is based on Abdallas abilities and accomplishments as well as his potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the U.S. science and engineering enterprise.

Abdallas research goal is to seek fundamental understanding of multienergy synergies of Laser-Sustained Plasma at an atomic, ionic, molecular and electronic level with the potential to control species and reaction pathways to obtain desired results. These results include low-cost coatings for industrial, consumer, and biomedical products, development of more energy efficient processes, and expanded scientific understanding of multi-energy processes, potentially transformative to materials processing and synthesis and propulsion.


A Laser-Sustained Plasma (LSP) is a gaseous discharge (partially-ionized gas) sustained by a continuous supply of electromagnetic radiation in the form of a laser beam. LSP's have been investigated for space propulsion and, more recently, have been used for high-speed deposition of polycrystalline and nanocrystalline diamond films. However, a main hurdle for both propulsion and deposition--efficient laser-plasma energy coupling--still remains. Inefficient energy coupling not only leads to energy losses, but also, in the case of film deposition, surface overheating, thus highly-nonuniform film formation